My Brother is NOT Here

Jeremy was supposed to come today. I was going to meet him at the airport at 7:15 am, and we were going to come back to our apartment, drop his stuff off, rest, shower, relax. Then we were going to have a great day of light touring in Singapore. We would have gone to the wet market next to our house. We would have eaten great food and probably gone downtown, and then we would be back early for him to pass out, since he would be jet lagged.

But. Nope. No Jeremy.

He was flying out of Syracuse, so he took a shuttle to Syracuse from Ithaca, and when he arrived, he found out that his flight was canceled. He didn't make his flight out of NYC, and he did not make it to Singapore. Singapore Airlines basically said, sorry, but we can't get you on a flight until 14 January. He is getting the money back for that ticket, bought another one (which was $1000 more expensive!), and he will be arriving (HOPEFULLY! or b'h for the frummies) on Wednesday night, late. He had to make it back to Ithaca in the snow, then he has to figure out how to get to Buffalo, stay the night there, since his flight is at 6 in the morning on Tuesday, and also, he didn't get to be HERE for the weekend!

We are meant to leave next Friday morning, early, for a 2.5 week trip in Thailand. I am seriously hoping he makes it here before then!!

Instead of my great day, I had a fine day. Ran errands (including finding Go Lean at the store!), picked up a repaired bag, did laundry, ate, played online boggle, and lazed.

Unemployed No Longer

Tomorrow I will start my new job at Moody's Singapore. Today was my last day, completing a week and a half of unemployment.

I did a good job of being a housewife today - I cleaned a lot, worked out (getting the saddle ready for four days of biking in Thailand), went to lunch with a friend, had coffee with another friend. I bought some things. I met another friend for dinner (REALLY good Thai). Of course I enjoy it on my LAST day!!!

Unfortunately, nothing more to report yet...

The Big Splash

It has happened three times in the past two days that I have gone out and said, "wow - it's only drizzling. Thank goodness" and then it starts to POUR. When it pours here, it's not like in other places where it lightens up. It just keeps pouring. They do have some pretty amazing drainage systems at work here, but I was a victim of the big splash.

You may recognize it from the beginning of Sex and the City where the bus drives by and totally splashes Carrie? Well, she looks super cute in her little white too-too. Not me. I'm in work-out clothes, but it's damaging to the soul. The water went in my ear, covered my glasses, potentially hurt my ipod, totally made my butt and whole backside soaked. If this happened in New York, I probably would have ran home and jumped in the shower without touching anything. I remember once I stepped in a puddle at 96th and Broadway, and I felt disgusting the rest of the day and washed my shoe thoroughly. In Singapore, it's so clean, it was like taking a shower! Other than the water all over my body, I could come home and forget the shower I had planned on!

Not too much going on here. We had a very busy weekend. Went to a Jewish community dinner for Shabbat and Hanukkah on Friday night. It was super nice. We love that community. We got to hang out with a friend from Matt's who was in from NYC. We played at least 10 games of Settlers on Saturday (but I only won one). We played five of them with my friend Tenley whom I met at my first job here. She and her husband are here with the US Navy. They live out in Sembawang, which was a $35 cab ride away. If you go to google maps and put in Sembawang, Singapore, you'll see that it's basically in Malaysia. It looks TOTALLY different than the rest of Singapore. They live in a house that was built by the British in the 30s and they used it for the British military until they left Singapore. Then, the Japanese used these houses when they invaded in the 40s, and now they're used by a bunch of anglo military families. It was such a cool house!! Gorgeous high ceilings, wood floor, mango smell outside because there are TONS of mangoes all over the place. We hope to go out there during the day sometime to see more (though the cost of transport was rough!!). We had such a great time with them. We also really liked their dog.

Sunday we had a nice time at a Hanukkah party of a young couple in the Jewish community. Then we met up with a bunch of Matt's grad school friends. Vinny, who is originally from Jakarta, went to high school in Singapore and now lives in DC (and went to grad school with Matt) came in yesterday, and we got to hang out with her for a bit. She's staying with us until tonight when she will go to see her family.

It's still pouring. Since my work permit hasn't come through yet, I think I will have to watch the basketball game that's on TV (Boston College and Maryland from days ago I'm sure) and the newest Grey's Anatomy (downloading right now). Rough day. :)

I'm the Chopsticks Superstar

I'm back to unemployed Melanie. I wish I could appreciate it more, but honestly, if you don't have kids, what do you do all day? All there is to do is spend money, and I'm cheap, so that doesn't appeal to me too much. Once you cleaned up and got groceries, what else is there?

I even tried to fold the laundry that we hung two days ago, but it's not dry yet...

To get out of the house today I went to the mall. It's pretty close to our house, and they have skim milk, good cereals (I even saw Go Lean, but it was US$7.50 a box...), and lots of other foods that I appreciate every once in a while. I decided to get lunch there. They have this awesome thing (in Singapore - not only this mall), where you can choose a bunch of things, and then they'll put them all in a soup for you. I got bok choy, sea weed, some tofu thing, a fish ball or two, and something else that was green. You have to eat this with chopsticks in your dominant hand and a spoon in your support hand. The food court was super busy, so this cute family of three sat with me. The mom complimented me on my chopstick usage. She said that I was doing it correctly (parallel choppers), and that she wasn't able to do that (she crossed). She was Chinese. I felt proud.

Another observation:
You know how when you're swimming in the ocean, somehow the sea weed always seems to find your legs? It's like in Scooby Doo when the monster wraps himself around Shaggy...Anyways, I have always been pretty afraid of sea weed. Today when I was trying to catch the sea weed with my chopsticks, it was automatically attracted to the sticks - like it would have been to my leg. Reminds me of how pieces of egg shells are attracted to a larger piece of shell.

Yesterday I went to a movie, and it was freezing. I got back home, and it had been raining for about 37 (prime number) hours. I couldn't warm up. I wore long pants, a long sleeved hoodie AND socks! I couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately today it's hot again. My walk to East Coast Park has been nixed. Too hot.

Yay Monsoons!

It's the monsoon season in Singapore.

I know that monsoons have ruined people's livelihoods.
Monsoons have probably killed lots of people - maybe even whole communities.
Rain makes some people depressed.
Let's face it, NO ONE likes to have wet feet...

But honestly, I love monsoon season so far. The temperature has really dropped. The sun isn't totally beating down, and it seems as though the humidity has gotten better as well. Yesterday I went running at 11:30 am! If I would have done that before November, I probably would have melted and died.

Today I was cold outside. I don't think I have sweat (other than when exercising) in two days. Amazing.

I have taken a picture of the rain outside of our apartment. I bet you can't really see that it's pouring and that the sidewalk area is totally soaked. You can just take my word for it.

I am still not working. My permission still hasn't come through. I have basically been running errands and doing things I haven't had time for in the past four months. This included taking my mother's diamond earrings to find out how much it would cost to get them reset in white gold. The woman cleaned them, and now they're super sparkly and pretty (they might not even need to get re-set, since they're so pretty now). I had dinner with two former co-workers. I looked for bags that are big enough to hold my shoes, a book and my lunch box yet not too ugly (no luck). I got new "we're not ready for children" drugs. I met a friend for lunch. Right now there is someone fixing the lock on our kitchen window that has been broken as well as making the water go down our sinks. In addition to all of this (and most important) is that I have watched seven Grey's Anatomys in the past three days. I absolutely love that show. I got nervous when Meredith died and came back to life, because I thought that was SUPER stupid, and I thought the show was going downhill, but the writers must have been sick for that episode. The rest are great. I love it.

Hopefully my permit will come through today. Otherwise I might have to suffer and go see a movie tomorrow.

Today I am a Woman

Okay, I got my first period many years ago, but today I became a woman.

I was supposed to start work today, but my letter of consent didn't come through from the ministry of manpower (yet). I didn't know what to do with my day. I walked all over Orchard Road, but I'm a bit bored of shopping. I tried to find some fun "going out clothes," but I am really too lazy to shop. There's just no other excuse. I look for ten minutes, and then I think, "well, I don't REALLY need anything - I'll just wear the ONE hot top I have..." and then I leave.

I then went to the Jewish community where I was interrogated before they let me in to buy some hanukkah candles. Then I went to get some good American food at the ex-pat grocery store (bagels, tuna, cereal), but on the way I saw an eyebrow threading place. I don't have very much eyebrow, but I thought that it could stand to be cleaned up a bit. Cleaned up is my 'brow. Looks good, if I may say so. This was my first womany thing.

Then I got some groceries and made my way back to Bedok where we live. I then got a pedicure. My toes are pink (pedicure AND pink toes - womany things two and three...). Unfortunately I smudged one, so I had to get it fixed, and the whole deal took nearly two hours, but I read my book.

I hope I get to work soon. I'm not so good at not working (remember my first two months?!).

Rabbits are Rodents, Right?

We have had a pretty exciting weekend.

Saturday Matt and I relaxed, played tennis, and I fell asleep in the sun (acquiring a sunburn on half of my neck, face and one arm).

We went out to dinner with two great couples. One we have met through the Jewish community. The man actually works at JPMorgan with Matt. They were superb. They also invited their friends who were also outstanding. They're all really interesting and REALLY nice people. Meeting people that we connect with isn't something that happens everyday, so we were pleased.

I know I have written a lot about this, but here goes again...non-kosher eating...

I know that eating all of this stuff is a stage, so I kind of feel like I should take advantage of it. For nearly my entire life, when I looked at a menu in a restaurant, I always had two or three options that were vegetarian, and because I'm cheap, I would simply choose the cheapest choice. It was a simple task, actually.

Eating everything has changed that whole experience. I look at a menu, and I have so many options. (I have also worked hard on not being so cheap, so I'm trying to not look at prices too much). Last night I decided to try rabbit with some sort of bacon thing on gnocchi. I have NEVER had anything like that.

All was fine and well until the food was served, and a conversation commenced about whether or not a rabbit could ever be kosher. Well, someone said, "I think it's part of the rodent family, so...I mean, I think that it probably can't be kosher." That REALLY grossed me out. I couldn't stop thinking about those HUGE, GROSS rats in NYC subway stations...Then I was thinking about cute little rabbits, and then finally I kept thinking about the cute little kitty that we have befriended. I felt like I was eating her. I ate up all of the pasta (and the bacon), but I left the rest of the rabbit.

My mom was reminding me that I became vegetarian (for five years) after I saw a family of shrimp on a plate (heads and all...). This could be happening again...

(I must be really Jewish, since EVERY time I typed rabbit - I actually typed "rabbi" and had to go back to put the "t." Clearly this eating style is a stage.)

Today we went on a great walk. We met Etan, who is in town from Chicago, at the reservoir here, and we had long hike. The beginning of the hike was uneventful, and it was actually filled with people. We reached the HSBC Treetop walk, and that was actually pretty cool. We then walked on and saw a bunch of neat lizards and things like that, and then the monkeys were everywhere. We walked to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve - it was about 10km total.

I don't know if I'm going to get arrested, shot or fined by writing this, but we'll see if there is censorship with this blog...

Stupid me - where there was no garbage can around, I decided to eat a banana. I thought I would just hold the peel until we saw another garbage (it's Singapore, there have to be garbage cans everywhere!). It took quite some time, and I had walked with it for about a half hour. It was mushy, brown, and getting grosser. Then we ended up seeing the monkeys. Some of them were cute, just watching, or sort of doing their own thing. Some, though, showed their teeth and got mean looking. The banana peel kept getting squeezed tighter into my hand. We saw signs all over the place that had a picture of a monkey's smiling faces with a banana and a line through it - and it said "fine $250."

What are the chances that I would think to eat a banana on a hike with monkeys, while it's illegal to feed them (bananas particularly), and there is no garbage?

At some point, though, we were walking on a bridge, and I felt cornered in. One of the monkeys started walking towards me (with teeth and all), and I freaked out and tossed him the peel and ran away. I was really scared - and I broke the law, which in Singapore is a really big deal.

I will never again eat bananas near monkeys.

We had really good Indian food as a reward afterwards.

Then I convinced Matt to play two-man Settlers of Catan with me a few times. Matt killed me. I think the tides are turning in our relationship. I usually kill him.